


Love Letters

by hanwritessolo



Series: Objects of Mass Destruction and Affection [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 16:14:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14264826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanwritessolo/pseuds/hanwritessolo
Summary: Maybe it would have been less painful if you never reread all the handwritten letters Gladio wrote to you.





	Love Letters

It is April Fool’s Day, and you are sitting on your couch with a box full of letters and with the remains of your heart at the palm of your hands.

An apt way to celebrate a trivial occasion, you wryly think to yourself, as you examine the stillness of your house, the gaps between books in your once tightly-packed shelves, like someone had punched the teeth out of its face; the half-opened drawers with Gladio’s wardrobe and most of his belongings emptied out. There are also shards of a broken vase in your living room floor, a scene of the crime of an argument that spiraled into a revelation, that eventually descended into the wreckage of your heart in which you sit yourself upon. There is no blood, but you wish there had been. At least that way, you can see the incriminating evidence to remind you how your foolishness runs deep for a man whose lips now taste like the woman he last kissed.

It is April Fool’s Day, and the box in your hand weighs heavy. It weighs heavy with all the handwritten notes Gladio wrote you in the past five years, all the letters and poems and puns that he saved only for you. It weighs heavy, all these letters and poems and puns are now a collection of knives and swords, sharper and lethal at your disposal.

This is how you cut yourself wide open.

You sift through each of them, each _I love you’s_ and _I miss you’s_ slice a throbbing pain, beckoning a memory of a time when the faint scent of his perfume on your sheets does not cleave your insides into pieces, a time when the spines of the books he gave you does not invite a monstrous desire to tear every page apart, because if you’re being honest, your inclination to torture and tolerance for pain are to blame, your wild sense of imagination is a cherry on top because you cannot help but wonder if Gladio also writes her a letter, or if she is prettier than you, or funnier or braver or smarter than you, or fucks him out of his mind better than you do.

This is how you bleed yourself dry.

It is April Fool’s Day, and your doorbell chimes a greeting. You wipe the tears that you did not even warrant to stream on your face. The box of letters remains cradled in your arm, and you open the door to see the same person who wrote them for you.

If there was anything worth noting, it was that Gladio’s pained expression did not suit his face.

The fire at the pit of your stomach foams into a coldness when you ask, “What do you need?”

“You. I need you.” Gladio vomits the words out with a hitch of his breath, his face wrinkles into tears, “It was stupid and I’m really sorry, and I don’t know how I’ll make it up to you—but if I have to, I’ll—“

You stop him from rambling when you shove the box into his chest. “Did you mean any of this?”

Gladio takes it and looks inside, and his face lights up in recognition. He meets your eyes and says, “Yes. Of course. Every word of it.”

The smile you grant him is unfeeling and cold, “Great. Take it and give it to the other girl you’re seeing, she might appreciate it—“

“No, I can’t,” Gladio’s voice creaks into an aching hoarseness when he pleads, “Look, I know it’s too soon for me to ask for your forgiveness but I—and I mean, I’m not always the most eloquent speaker around you, and I have been warned of the high probability of messing this up. Shit.” He bites his lip as he continues, “But I want you to know that it will always be you. I love you, and I’m an idiot who did a dumb and stupid thing that ended up hurting the person he loves.”

You let the silence stretch into a graceless minute. Gladio patiently stands in wait, while you ponder on forgiveness and second chances.

It is April Fool’s Day. You hold the door and let him in.

 


End file.
